U.R. Bowie
Commentary
on Story by Anton Chekhov, “In the Cart” (Yarmolinsy Translation)
From
the book by George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
[NB: This posting should be read in conjunction with another recent posting on this blog, my critical analysis of Chekhov's short story "In the Cart" (posting of Aug. 24, 2022)]
Introduction
I taught Russian literature in a university for thirty
years. Naturally, I was intrigued when the short-story writer George Saunders
published a book detailing how he teaches Russian stories in his creative
writing classes at Syracuse University. Among those stories are two by Anton Chekhov
that I once taught (“The Darling” and “Gooseberries”) and one by Nikolai Gogol
(“The Nose”).
I decided that before looking at the Saunders commentary I
would publish my own critical remarks on each story. The result would be an
interesting contrast: material as presented by a teacher of Russian literature
versus material as presented by a teacher of creative writing. The first story
treated by Saunders is Anton Chekhov’s “In the Cart.” I have already posted my
critical analysis of that story on my blog, “U.R. Bowie on Russian Literature.”
What follows below is my commentary on how George Saunders approaches the
story.
Prefatory Material:
“We Begin”
Saunders begins by describing his creative writing students
at Syracuse. These students come to him “already some of the best young writers
in America.” Hmm, already? He explains that “we pick only six students a year
from an applicant pool of between six and seven hundred.” How, then, does the
Syracuse creative writing department deal with these “already good” writers?
Over a period of three years “the goal is to help them achieve what I call
their ‘iconic space.’” This is “the place from which they will write the
stories only they could write, using what makes them uniquely themselves . . .
At this level good writing is assumed; the goal is to help them acquire the technical
means to become defiantly and joyfully themselves.”
Okay. So these good writers are not yet “themselves” but
we’ll give them some “technical means” that will help them find some “iconic
space” where they’ll be, finally, themselves—and will also be, for some reason,
“defiant” and “joyful.” A lot of promises being made here. Caveat emptor.
After his critique of “In the Cart,” sixty-one pages into this book, Saunders
tosses off a casual mention of “what Hemingway called a ‘built-in, shockproof
shit-detector.’ How do we know that something is shit? We watch the way the
deep, honest part of our mind reacts to it.” Turn on your built-in BS detector,
reader. We’re only a paragraph into this book, but do not you, gentle reader,
like me, already suspect that we may be in the clutches of one outrageous
bullshitter?
If you read this book you must be prepared, unfortunately,
for frequent digressions on the world of the creative writing seminar. At one
point, e.g., Saunders stops speaking about the Chekhov/Yarmolinsky story and
tells us how fiction writing is taught at Syracuse. This includes
“workshopping” stories by writers in the class. First, we look for the
“Hollywood version” of a story: “a pithy one- or two-sentence summary,” meant
to answer the question, “What story does this story appear to want to be?” Duh.
Later on we get an expatiation on a different issue: “Is this story story
yet, or is it not yet story?” That sort of thing.
Give him a pass on all that for now. Let’s see what Saunders
has to say about the Russian stories. For years he has been teaching them in
his classes, hoping to learn from them, to come to understand “the physics of
the form (‘How does this thing work, anyway?’).” These stories set a “high bar
against which I measure my own . . . After all these years, the texts feel like
old friends, friends I get to introduce to a new group of brilliant young
writers every time I teach them.” Near the end of his exegesis of “In the
Cart,” we will learn that one of these old friends is the main character of the
story. “What I really want to talk about [he says later] is the short story
form itself.” But the Russian writers also regard fiction “as a vital
moral-ethical tool,” and they “ask the big questions: How are we supposed to be
living down here? What were we put here to accomplish? What should we value?
What is truth, anyway, and how might we recognize it?”
Early admission by our guide: “I’m not a critic or a
literary historian or an expert on Russian literature or any of that.” Saunders
goes on to admit that he does not read Russian—or, for that matter, understand
all that much about Russian history, literature, politics, culture, mentalities,
etc. He is saying, in effect, let’s just pretend that the stories were written
in English, since even in English, “they have worlds to teach us.”
Big inquiries that should enter the mind of any reader: why
give up so much before you even start? Why begin your investigation into the
craft of the short story and literary creativity with texts that are so utterly
alien to you? Why not, e.g., use American stories? After all, you, as an
American, have profound knowledge of American history, people, mores, culture.
In his prefatory remarks Saunders goes on explaining a few
more things. “The main thing I want us to be asking together is: What did we
feel [while reading the story] and where did we feel it?” In his explication of
the text Saunders, our guide, will “offer some technical explanation for why we
might have felt what we felt, where we felt it.” The rest of this page doesn’t
say much, but at the end we learn that we will “try to explore the way the
creative process really works.” Feeling, it seems, is all important. “What
we’re going to be doing here, essentially, is watching ourselves read (trying
to reconstruct how we felt as we were, just now, reading).”
But what, really, is the point of watching ourselves read as
we read and trying to figure out how we feel/felt? And assuming a class of,
say, twenty students, does not each individual have his or her own discrete
feelings? And, if so, what can we learn about the story in question and
particular episodes? Only that all different feelings are aroused. Something
here reminds me of the standard question of the solicitous psychoanalyst: “How
do you feel about that?” Enough preliminary grumbling. Let’s get on to the
Chekhov story.
Eleven Pages of
Yarmolinsky
Since we know that Saunders reads no Russian and,
presumably, neither do any of his students, we must read and discuss the story
through the intermediation of the translator he has chosen, Avrahm Yarmolinsky.
Sad fact: most Russian literature classes in most universities in the U.S. are
taught in English translation. We have no other choice, since picking up a
reading knowledge of Russian does not come easily. So before assigning this
story in his/her class what does the teacher of Russian literature do? She/he
checks available translations with the original text and assigns the best one.
Having no Russian, Saunders cannot do this, but he can, e.g., consult a teacher
of Russian at Syracuse for advice. Has he done so, has he made sure that his
Yarmolinsky story, “In the Cart,” is faithful to Chekhov’s original text?
Apparently not.
What might one find in checking translations? Well, here’s
one example. The Marian Fell translation of this story, “A Journey by Cart,” which
is a good translation, has one serious error, mistaking (twice) the word
“thirteen” for “thirty,” and thereby distorting the story. The Fell translation
is included in the very popular Norton Critical Edition of Chekhov’s short
stories; the error should have been found and corrected by the editors. Is the
teacher of Russian literature stuck with that bad mistake in “A Journey by
Cart”? No, of course not. All he/she has to do is inform the students, and they
can correct the error in their books. But not if she/he knows no Russian.
As for the Yarmolinsky translation, there may be a few
places where you can quibble with renderings into English, but, on the whole,
the translation is fine. I’ve checked it. So we’re okay to go ahead and read
and analyze “In the Cart.”
One Page at a Time
Saunders tells us that we will “track our mind as it moves
from line to line” in the story. We want to know “what makes a reader keep
reading . . . Would a reasonable person, reading line four, get enough of a
jolt to go on to line five?” We will read the story “one page at a time,”
stopping after each page to “take stock of where we find ourselves.” How do we
feel, what have we learned, what do we expect to happen next, do we even want
to keep reading?
So here’s a sad fact, but true. If you’ve never read
Chekhov’s story before, if you’ve never read “In the Cart” by Chekhov-Yarmolinsky,
and you agree to go along with Saunders, be prepared to have this story ruined
for you for all time. Going one page at a time, with constant interruptions for
workshoppy talk by the pedagogical presence, will destroy the most important
connection—of the reader with narrative presence/author—and squelch any
possible aesthetic enjoyment on the part of the reader. And why do we read literary
fiction? For many reasons, but, above all, for the pure aesthetic pleasure. Saunders,
by the way—who says nothing about the aesthetic pleasure of reading great
lit—is aware of this problem, at least subliminally. He senses that his one-page-at-a-time
approach, with continuous interruptions, will annoy his reader, and he makes
semi-apologies several times.
One more thing: what, according to Saunders, should be the
state of your mind as you address the story, “In the Cart?” “Let’s note [he
says], rather obviously that, at this moment . . . your mind is a perfect
blank.” Hmm. So we don’t want any preconceptions or prejudices getting in the
way of a pristine reading of a work of fiction. This would be fine, were not
any human mind roiling at any given time in preconceptions and prejudices. But I
assume that Saunders wants your mind blank, so that he, the pedagogical
presence, can tell you what you should be feeling after each line, or each page.
Maybe not thinking, but feeling.
Of course, the mind of our guide cannot possibly be blank at
the start, since he has read this story and even taught it countless times. But
you get the impression that even for him, ideally, the beginnings should be as
blank as possible. Is that a good idea? How does the teacher of Russian
literature approach a reading and teaching of this story? Let’s say I have a
Ph.D. in Russian literature (I do), and I want to assign this story for a
class. First, I read it in Russian, several times, making notes as I go. With
each successive reading of it new insights will appear. Then (see above) I
check the English translations and select the best one. Then, assuming that I’m
not the greatest literary genius who ever lived, I consult the ideas of others
who have read this story. I read the secondary sources, critical articles on
Chekhov and on this particular work of fiction. Interpretations of this
story.
At this point I am ready to prepare a list of discussion
questions for my class. Big important point: I don’t want my students looking
at the discussion questions until after they have read the story,
interacted with the narrative presence. If I stick my questions up in their
faces while they are reading I ruin the aesthetic pleasure of their
first encounter with the story. So, ideally, they will read the story several
times, think about it, let the sparks settle in their minds. Only then will
they address the study questions. I say “ideally” of course, because there will
always be some students who come to class on the day of discussion, having not
read the story even once—let alone having addressed the study questions. I dare
say that even Saunders, with all those “brilliant” students of his, will run
into some of these.
One more thing: every time I teach this particular story I
will get better at teaching it. Because every time you interact with a work of
fiction new insights appear. Some of them come from the students in the class,
some from reading say, some new critical material on the work. Some of them
just pop into your head. But rereading and reteaching a story many times is
highly beneficial.
What would George Saunders gain if he had read the story in
Russian (which he cannot do), had he read a thing or two about the social and
political situation in the south of Russian in the year 1893 (which he
obviously has not done), had he read any secondary sources on Chekhov or
on the story (which he certainly does not appear to have done). He would gain
an in-depth feel for the story, and, above all, he would see the
importance of certain specific details. I’m getting ahead of myself here, but
we shall soon note that Saunders misses places in the story where Anton
Chekhov is practically shouting out to the reader, LOOK AT THIS DETAIL—true, in
his soft, almost whispering Chekhovian voice; Chekhov never shouts. You want a
writer shouting at you, read Tolstoy.
Of course, Chekhov, who once said, “I can speak all
languages, except the foreign ones,” is whisper-shouting in Russian, Посмотри! and since Saunders knows
no Russian you might say it’s unfair of me to expect him to read secondary
sources in Russian, where the best critical articles are to be found. You’re right,
and I’d be prone to excuse him had he bothered to read secondary materials in
English, or any other language.
We Begin (Again): On
Blurbery
Let me forewarn the reader at this point that in going
through this story along with Saunders as guide you’re in for a tough slog. But
if you’re bothering to read my extensive commentary here you must have already
read what our guide wrote, so you know that. Or you may be one of the many
blurbers who have posted their encomiums on the back cover of the paperback book
or in the first five front-matter pages. True to the mystical world of
blurbery, all of these deluded personages are overflowing with praise for A
Swim in a Pond in the Rain. No way in hell that most of them made it even
through discussion of our first story (“In the Cart”), let alone through the
whole book (400 pages). But they work for various periodicals, The New York
Times Book Review, The Wall Street Journal, etc., and they were assigned
this book to review.
Saunders, of course, has a well-earned renown as a writer of
fiction, mostly short stories. I agree. George Saunders is probably the best
short-story writer living in the U.S. today. So what’s the rule for any writer
of any review of any book by George Saunders? The rule, a cardinal principle
for all journals and newspapers of the Eastern Establishment Press is this:
your review must be positive. And so they are. And out of those positive
reviews come the glowing, mendacious blurbs.
Names, Conveyances,
Terrorists, Assassinations
“In the Cart” describes a very muddy ride in a cart (в телеге) by a woman, Marya Vasilievna,
who is a schoolteacher in a tiny village in the south of Russia. The cart is
driven by a peasant, Semyon. The story, first published in 1897, is set in the
year 1893. Once again, I assume that anyone reading my analysis of someone
else’s analysis of this story has read “In the Cart.” Surely you would not read
me on the story, or Saunders on the story, without reading the story. I hope,
for your sake, that you haven’t done it the excruciating way he suggests, one
page at a time with interruptions, but, then again, there’s no other way to
read his book.
In my critical article (see the post on my blog) I treat the
issue of names in Russian, something that Saunders never touches on. Most
importantly, our main character’s last name is never revealed. She is referred
to by first name and patronymic, which is the normal polite way to address or
to refer to someone in Russian. Her driver Semyon (this is his first name,
Simon in English) addresses her repeatedly by patronymic, Vasilievna, which is
polite enough, but is a peasanty locution that somewhat demeans her. To give
her the respect she deserves, he should address her as Marya Vasilievna. Enough
about names for now. Saunders calls the character by her first name, Marya,
which is congruent with his sentimentalist approach to her (more on the
sentimental reader later).
I also go into detail on the importance of Russian
conveyances in the story; on my blog post I even include photographs of various
Russian carts, wagons and carriages. The most important point being that the
central character MV is described as riding в телеге,
whereas the title of the story is “На подводе.” So
we have two different words—true, they are synonyms—for rough, springless
wagons/carts, but the words, nonetheless, are different. Only once in the body
of the story does Chekhov use the word in the title, podvoda (подвода), and this is to describe the
wagons parked outside the tavern where MV and Semyon stop off to drink tea.
Those wagons are loaded with huge bottles of oil of vitriol (concentrated sulfuric
acid). This is one of the places in the story where Chekhov is screaming
silently and pointing: look at this! The reader should ask—and certainly
a writer explaining how the story is written should ask, and then answer—what
in the world is this sulfuric acid doing in the story?
Saunders doesn’t ask, or answer. He is too busy telling us
things like this (two pages worth): “The three paragraphs we have just read are
in service of increased specification. Certain specifics have narrowed the path
of narration—certain things can now happen; certain other things cannot. We’re
at an interesting place.”
I wondered about the sulfuric acid. So did Aleksandr Karsky,
in a critical article available online. In Russian. Karsky’s answer to the
question opens up new realms of interpretation of this story (once again, for
full details, see my blog). Suffice it to say here that the sulfuric acid
relates, obliquely, to the issue of terrorism in Russia.
I wondered, as well, about the assassination of the mayor of
Moscow, mentioned in passing on the second page of Yarmolinsky. Saunders refers
to this passage but makes next to nothing of it. What is this detail doing in
the story? For one thing, it allows us to date the story exactly: N.A. Alekseev
was shot and killed on Mar. 9, 1893, so we know that “In the Cart” is set a
month later, on an April day, 1893. Saunders never bothers to figure this out. Chekhov
certainly wanted the detail of the murder in the story, insisted on it being there.
How do we know that? Because secondary sources tell us that upon first
publication of the story in 1897, the publisher of the newspaper where it
appeared asked Chekhov to omit this detail. It was still all too raw in the
minds of Muscovites, and the bereaved relatives of Alekseev, wife and
daughters, would find it painful. Chekhov omitted mention of the assassination
in the first publication, but reinserted it when the story was included in his
Collected Works. The information about Moscow’s wonderful mayor and his murder
is all over the internet, and in English as well, so if Saunders wanted to
investigate this episode, and figure out why, probably, Chekhov wanted mention
of it in his story, all he had to do was click on his computer.
Nature Descriptions
The story begins with a long description of lovely nature on
an April day in the south of Russia, “with a splendid April sun shedding
warmth.” This is the first appearance of the sun in the story. For the most
part it keeps its rays in the shadows, but it will flash here and there later
on, in preparation for a scene of grand sunlit resplendence at the end.
Saunders tells us—and he’s spot on here—that there’s “an
implied tension between two elements of the narrative voice, one telling us
that things are lovely [the beauty of nature, ‘into which it seemed that one
could plunge with such joy,’ writes Yarmolinsky/Chekhov] . . . and another
resisting the general loveliness.” The resister is the main character MV and
the insister is the narrator of the story (or the author behind the narrative
voice).
Here Chekhov briefly violates the principle of POV (point of
view), which is a cardinal sin for most MFA purveyors of rules for writing
fiction. The story’s POV is centered almost exclusively on MV, but here
somebody else is admiring the beauty of nature. Good writers need not concern
themselves incessantly with these rules about how to write. In, perhaps, his
most famous, and one of his best stories, “The Lady with the Lap Dog,” Chekhov
violates, egregiously, one of the central tenets of the writer’s handbook:
“show, don’t tell.” And he gets away with it. In this story, “In the Cart,” he
also does a lot of “telling,” backgrounding on the main character, MV.
Assuming that your mind was not the “perfect blank” that
Saunders predicates as ideal for beginning a reading of this, or any story,
what else could you say about this long nature description? Well, anyone who
knows much about Chekhov and has read much of Chekhov will recognize something
familiar here. A man who writes consistently about the foibles and fecklessness
of Russian humanity—in this story too—Chekhov loves to contrast the loveliness
of the world in which we live with the sorry state of humanity living in it.
The sun is out there, shining away, but all too often we are mired in the muck.
As is MV, along with all the other characters of “In the Cart.”
Early on the local landowner Hanov, one of the most feckless
personages in the tale, drives up in his fancy carriage pulled by four horses. There’s
a reason why Chekhov places his arrival directly after mention of Alekseev’s
murder (see my blog). Our guide misses that juxtaposition. Saunders tells us,
rightly, that Hanov’s arrival is “a big event of the page,” since a potential
romance is in the works. Quoting Saunders: “Notice that, in spite of the fact
that we are literary sophisticates, engaged in a deep reading of a Chekhov
masterpiece, we feel the sudden appearance of Hanov to be a potential
nineteenth century Russian meet-cute: lonely woman encounters possible lover.”
The potential for romance is soon squelched, but Saunders goes on stressing the
obvious, beating that drum for the entire remainder of his discussion.
Saunders continually emphasizes how a character or a detail
in a short story must be there for a reason. If it/she/he has no reason for
being, then he/she/ it should not be in the story. He’s right. The short story
is, he says, “a harsh form” that has no tolerance for extraneous matters.
Right. We read a detail and we are “enacting an expectation of efficiency.”
Right. So what is the detail of Alekseev’s murder doing in the story? No
comment by our guide. What are the big bottles of sulfuric acid doing in the
story? No comment by our guide.
Hanov drives up in his carriage and tells MV that he is on
the way to visit another landowner, Bakvist. At this point Saunders may well ask,
but doesn’t, What is Bakvist doing in the story? Or, rather, why is he
mentioned in the story (his physical self never shows up)? Will we hear more of
him later? If Bakvist has no function in the story he should be kicked out of
it. True, Saunders does note that desultory Hanov is off on a visit to Bakvist,
although Hanov seems to know that Bakvist is not at home. So Bakvist is here,
maybe, by way of showing what a dolt Hanov is. True.
A strange surname, Bakvist, not a Russian name (Polish?), a
flash of something exotic (the very sound of the name) into the monochrome of a
dreary Chekhovian story mired in mud. At the very end of “In the Cart” the name
Bakvist will, indeed, reappear, and we can figure out another reason for his
being in the story. Although Saunders never does.
The image of the name “Bakvist” as a kind of glint of exotic
sunlight brings me back to the issue of nature description. Throughout the
narrative of “In the Cart” the artist in Chekhov provides us with a fascinating
display of light effects. Shortly before Semyon and MV reach the tavern—where
the wagons with oil of vitriol are parked outside—we get the word
“enlightenment” three times in one paragraph: “She had begun to teach school
from necessity, without feeling called to it, and she never thought of [her
job] as a calling, of the need for enlightenment; it always seemed to her that
what was most important in her work was not the children, not enlightenment,
but the examinations. And when did she have time to think of a calling, of
enlightenment?” This passage, of course, like many other details about the main
character MV, serves to further develop our understanding of her. But deeply
embedded within the text here are those glints of light, flashing three times.
Next comes the tavern scene, one of the most important in
the story (more on its importance later). Amidst a room full of drunken
peasants shouting obscenities, MV sits drinking tea, thinking and rethinking
her obsessive thoughts about the school, and while a concertina goes on playing
on the other side of the wall, Chekhov sticks in some lovely light effects:
“There had been patches of sunlight on the floor, they shifted to the counter,
then to the wall, and finally disappeared altogether; this meant that it was
past midday.”
With those little sunspots, so delicately flickering around
while ignoring the hubbub and drunkenness, we are being prepared for the grand
epiphany that is to come at the end of the story: the scene of “enlightenment,”
when the setting sun blazes on the green roof of MV’s school, on crosses of the
church, setting the windows aflame. Just then the train passes and its windows
too reflect glaring light, and then comes the vision that crowns the story: MV
sees her dead mother standing on a first-class platform of the train. She is
flooded with the light of joy and happiness, and, for a brief moment, sees
herself back in the Moscow of her childhood. She bursts into tears. Saunders:
“She recalls who she once was. She is who she once was.” Chekhov has prepared
well early in the story for the sun spangles of “enlightenment” here at the
end, but Saunders makes no mention of the foreshadowing. He misses all the
gathering up of light effects—something that should be of genuine interest to
creative writing students.
Our guide through the story apparently does not appreciate
conventional ways of discussing literary fiction. He avoids using terms like narrative
arc, climax, denouement, epiphany. Why? At least these words furnish terms
for some of the things he treats and remove some of the haze from his nebulous discussion.
At some length he gets into the workshoppy issue of “when a story becomes story.”
If “In the Cart” ended at the end of its tenth page, would it be a story yet?
No, he says, something would be lacking. In reading, or writing a short story
we must constantly ask ourselves, opines Saunders, “Is it story yet?”
But isn’t this what he seems to be suggesting? That despite his success in
developing the main character over the course of the narrative, Chekhov still
lacks a high point in the narrative arc, a climax? Give us this climactic
moment near the end—MV’s vision of her mother and her sudden joy—and we get
that climax, or epiphany, and “the story becomes story.”
The Social and
Political Background
Anton Chekhov is certainly not a preachy writer. He does not
pound social, ethical or political messages into the heads of his readers. But
his fiction is very much enveloped in the social and political milieu of his
time, and he has his points to make about the sad state of his country. He
makes those points subtly, but, nonetheless, he makes them.
Once in a while, in the midst of his workshoppy exegesis,
Saunders takes a look at just where we are in the story, in the rural south of
Russian, in the year 1893. Considering the plight of our schoolmistress
heroine, he asks, “What kind of Russia is this that compels a person to work a
job to which she has no calling, and to be so reduced by it?” Instead of
answering that question, which would entail looking at the Russia of 1893, he
“finds himself thinking of Terry Eagleton’s assertion that ‘capitalism plunders
the sensuality of the body.’” Okay, so capitalism is a bad thing, but what was
MV’s Russia like? Read secondary sources and you’ll learn about the drought of
1892-93, about the famine. You’ll learn that MV’s purchases in town (flour and
sugar) probably cost her a whole month’s salary.
In speaking of the scene in the tavern, how a few of the
drunken peasants briefly express animosity toward MV, Saunders remarks that
things “will be worse, in about twenty years [24 years, to be exact, URB], when
the Russian Revolution breaks out and some of these same peasants march up the
road and seize Hanov’s estate.” Good point. They might have done this even
earlier, during the turmoil of 1905. In fact, some of MV’s peasant pupils,
grown to be young men, could be active participants in the revolutionary chaos soon
to come.
As for that tavern scene, pivotal in the story, Saunders
discusses it in some detail, but often his conclusions are pedestrian and self-evident.
All the details describing the tavern lead us to “conclude that Chekhov wants
to communicate: this is a rough place.” Duh. He notices that MV, while
somewhat demeaned by the peasants, is inured to such behavior. This is one more
step in the development of our main character (good point). She’s “used to her
fallen state . . . no longer particularly outraged about it.”
A central fact that Chekhov emphasizes repeatedly throughout
this story, and in many, many of his other fictional works: Russia is on the
take. This is particularly important since corruption rules, and has ruled throughout
the whole of Russian history. In the year 2022 the country is still morally corrupt
from top to bottom. All the characters in this tale, except for MV, live lives
of moral corruption. Since he is rich, Hanov does not have to participate directly
in this kind of give and take—bribery, kickbacks, mutually scratching the backs
of friends, who scratch yours in turn—but he is feckless and sorry, of low
moral character.
Near the end of the story we learn that the bridge over the
river is built not where the village of Vyazovye is situated, but a couple of
miles up the road. Why? Rather than driving out of his way to use the bridge,
Semyon fords the river, in an act of foolish bravado that could have drowned
his horse in harness. He grumbles about the Zemstvo, the local governing
authority. Why? The implication here is clearly that the landowner Bakvist has
used his influence, or has bribed the authorities to have the bridge built next
to his estate. That implication is probably the main reason why Bakvist is
mentioned for a second time in the story. Why does the railway line run here,
rather than through the district capital? Same implication. Someone has paid
someone off to get the railroad running here.
Meanwhile Saunders, who misses all these implications, is
busy telling us what a story is: “A story is not like real life; it’s like a table
with just a few things on it. The ‘meaning’ of the table is made by the choice
of things and their relation to one another. Imagine these things on a table: a
gun, a grenade, a hatchet, a ceramic statue of a duck. If the duck is at the
center of the table, surrounded closely by the weapons, we feel: that duck is
in trouble. If the duck, the gun, and the grenade have the hatchet pinned down
in one corner, we may feel the duck to be leading the modern weaponry (the gun,
the grenade) against the (old-fashioned) hatchet. If the three weapons are
hanging precipitously over one edge of the table and the duck is facing them,
we might understand the duck to be a radical pacifist who’s finally had
enough.”
You often feel as if Saunders gave that duck a voice and he
is quacking out the sort of empty blather that we get here, and elsewhere—in
place of a genuine analysis of our story. As for the tavern scene, Saunders
misses the implication in the oil of vitriol on the carts outside (see above),
misses the description of the lovely sunspots and how this foreshadows the
ending of the story (see above). He mentions how the peasants, led by the
little pockmarked man, soften in their attitude toward MV, but makes little or nothing
of this. Several of these rough peasants make clear how they respect her. One
says, “It’s the school-ma’m from Vyazovye. I know; she’s a good sort.” Another
adds, “She’s all right!” The original Russian here reads, “She’s a decent
person.” They line up to shake hands with her before leaving the tavern.
Important fact about Russians (or humans) on the take. They
assume that not only they, but everyone else as well, lives a life of petty
corruption. They tend to condescend to people who don’t play the game of
corruption, to use these people, look upon them as saps. We learn later that
the peasants believe MV to be playing by the same rules as them. They assume
that she pockets (she does not) “the greater part of the money that she
received for firewood and for the janitor’s wages.” Yet they must have heard
how well she treats her peasant students, how she perseveres in doing her job
amidst great adversity; they respect her for a reason. The main point being
that once in a while (not often) some deep neuron in the human brain comes to
the forefront, and corrupt human beings reveal a grudging but profound respect
for rectitude and probity. That’s what the scene of the handshakes is all
about. Beaten but unbowed MV is truly the heroine of this story.
Three Types of
Readers
“You have lowbrow readers, for whom only the sentimental
side of a book counts; middlebrows, fond of ideas, and, finally, the highbrows,
responsive to art” (Vladimir Nabokov, Think, Write, Speak, p. 274).
Nabokov was not the first to come up with this three-way categorization of
readers, and, of course, the thing can only be an oversimplification. But I
find it instructive in looking at the way George Saunders approaches his
exegesis of this story by Chekhov/Yarmolinsky.
Odd fact: Saunders (see above) at the conclusion to his
analysis of “In the Cart,” mentions Hemingway’s “built-in shockproof shit
detector,” seemingly unaware that any reader running this BS detector while
reading his commentary will hear it clanging perpetually in his ears. A good
example is the passage about the duck that I just cited, but you can find other
examples on almost any page. At one point Saunders also brings up the issue of
what he calls “ritual banality avoidance,” unaware, it seems, that any reader
of his commentary will be hard put to avoid the “ritual banality.” Finally, in
reference to himself, and his students who are discussing this story, he remarks
at one point, “we are literary sophisticates, engaged in a deep reading of a
Chekhov masterpiece.”
We’ve already given numerous examples of how superficial
this “deep reading” is. Let’s look further now at the “literary sophisticates”
in that creative writing class. Since they are deeply invested in the art of
literary fiction, should they not be among Nabokov’s “highbrows”? The most
astonishing thing of all about the Saunders approach to “In the Cart” is how
much it has in common to the approach of what Nabokov calls the lowbrow reader;
elsewhere Nabokov has spoken, disparagingly, of the kind of reader who moves
his lips as he reads.
Consistently throughout his analysis of the story, Saunders emphasizes
his sympathy for the main character, MV, or Marya as he calls her. As mentioned
above, at the first appearance of the landowner Hanov in the story, Saunders
brings up the possibility of a romantic connection between him and MV. Incompetent
and useless as Hanov is, however, we readers are “not sure if we want Marya
interested in him or not.” Later MV is thinking of her problems at the school
but she “self-interrupts herself” and in her thoughts switches back to the
Hanov track: “He really is handsome.” This self-interruption is “a beautiful
thing,” since “it says the mind can be two places at once.” Saunders goes on to
remark, “Note the little burst of pleasure we feel as we recognize ourselves in
Marya.” Huh? Do we recognize ourselves in Marya and does that give us pleasure?
How can Saunders speak for how any reader, except himself, feels?
Early on Saunders dismisses the possibility that MV and
Hanov can make a connection, but he keeps coming back to this possibility.
Well, he suggests, Havov, after all, is a dolt, but the reader (as lip-reading
sentimentalist) thinks, “Do I even want them together? I sort of do, I guess.” Later:
“The story has just written itself out of the place of its original conception,
by removing Hanov as a possible antidote for Marya’s loneliness.” What will
happen next we don’t know, but we still kind of want Hanov and MV to get
together. “We’re rooting for Marya.” On the other hand, in removing the love
interest Chekhov has avoided making his story into a bit of banality about
romantic love. This might be called “ritual banality avoidance.” Urgh.
After MV reveals in the tavern scene that she “is used to
her fallen state, no longer particularly outraged about it,” the lip reader
remarks, “I find myself feeling more tenderness for her, and more protective of
her.” After the big epiphany scene at the end, when MV briefly is illumined
with joy and tenderness, when she becomes briefly her former happy self, the
doofus sentimentalist says, “I love this new, suddenly elated Marya,” and,
shortly after that, “I always feel that this harsh world she’s been living in
is about to receive a correction.” HUH? Now, where did that come from? One
exception to my caviling: Saunders sticks in a nice detail at the very end.
When the guard takes off his cap as MV rides back into the little village where
she lives and works, it is as if to say, “Welcome back, madam, to your
loneliness.” Good point, George Saunders.
What an unusual approach to fiction from one who is a
professional writer of fiction: to read a story in one of the most primitive
and unsophisticated ways possible, by identifying with the main character. Of
course, any reader has sympathies with certain characters in fiction; it’s only
natural that we should do so. But to make this the central feature of your
piece of literary criticism? Astonishing. At the very end comes this passage of
utter imbecility: “Over the course of these eleven pages, the blank mind with
which you began [what “blank mind”? URB] has been filled with a new friend,
Marya, who, if my experience is any indication, will stay with you forever. And
the next time you hear someone described as ‘lonely,’ you may, because of your
friendship with Marya, find yourself more inclined to think of that person
tenderly, even though you haven’t met her yet.”
So that’s why we read literary fiction: to make new friends.
After I get up off the floor from rolling in laughter at this maudlin tripe I
imagine great Russian writers in the Afterlife—say Chekhov and Nabokov—also rolling
and holding their sides. And just to think: only two pages later comes mention
of what Hemingway called that “built-in, shockproof shit-detector.” Surely all
those brilliant students in Saunders’ classes at Syracuse—assuming that they
have not snored their way through his classroom presentation of “In the Cart”—have
detected the BS almost from the beginning. That last bit quoted above, by the
way, about making friends with MV, is a perfect example of what is meant by the
Russian word poshlost’. In his quirky little book on Nikolai Gogol,
Nabokov spends several pages (63-74) expatiating on the meaning of this word,
which encompasses different variants of what we translate into English as banality/vulgarity.
Speaking of Gogol. He wrote both fiction and nonfiction. His
fiction is often magnificent, sparking with a volcanic creativity unachieved by
nearly any other Russian prose writer. It’s as if some creative neuron deep in
his brain turned off the pedestrian side of Nikolai Gogol and took over during
the writing, say, of “The Overcoat,” or “The Nose.” On the other hand, that neuron
was asleep when the time came for Gogol to write his nonfiction, which is rife
with sanctimony and utter banality. The pedestrian side of Gogol makes for hard
slogging for any reader.
With George Saunders we have a similar situation. His
fiction is brilliant, but surely not the same man wrote this analysis of “In
the Cart.” The fiction writer would bridle at the suggestion that while writing
a story he would have to stop and ask questions like, “Is it story yet?”
Or, “Am I properly into my ritual banality avoidance?” That man would read the
passage about the duck and the hatchet and marvel that someone named George
Saunders wrote that bit of nonsensical badinage.
I had originally intended to read all of this book, A
Swim in A Pond in the Rain, but after “In the Cart” I cannot go on. After
all, this woebegone book contains the workshoppy take on some of my favorite
works of Russian fiction, including two more great stories by Chekhov and
Gogol’s immortal “Nose.” I shudder to think of how Saunders will approach the
Nose in that story. Will he find a way to make friends with it? Will he ask it
how it feels to be blown? Maybe by some miracle the remaining three hundred
pages of this book are much better than the first sixty. I’ll never know, given
that the first sixty are so bad.
d
An
Elaborate Hoax?
One other way to read this book. It could be a work of fiction, an
elaborate hoax on the part of the fiction writer George Saunders, who tells the
tale of a creative writing prof—also named, coincidentally, George Saunders—a
lip-reading sentimentalist given to pontificating about ducks and hatchets,
about what a short story is, how a short story feels, and when a story
becomes story. In passages dripping with irony this prof—who knows next
to nothing about Russia or Russian literature—reveals his “methods” for
teaching something he has no business teaching: Russian literature. In
excruciating detail he leads his readers through some of the best fiction ever
written—and spoils this fiction utterly for the reader.
So much of the material here lends itself to that interpretation
of A Swim in a Pond in the Rain. The rodomontade right at the beginning about
how he and his fellow writing instructors will lead “brilliant” students to
their cherished “iconic space”—and to a new “defiant and joyful” life. The
thing about “ritual banality avoidance,” stuck in amidst the many pages of pure
banality. And, especially, after sixty pages of persiflage and BS, the casual
mention of Hemingway’s BS detector. If this is what the book is all about, am I
the first one to discover the magnificent joke that Saunders has played on
readers who take it seriously?
